Bright paintings, glamorous jewelry, inspiring scratchboards, patterned bowls, molded sculptures and shaded pen drawings could all be found at the art exhibit that took place the week of Feb. 24 in the Lyceum. According to art teacher Stephanie Fuja, each year the art teachers choose the best works of each of their students and arrange them for the school to view.
Fuja says the purpose of the art show is to promote the art program and also to display the students’ work because “they take pride in their pieces.”
“I think that showing what we have to offer in this department and what the kids can do is a cool thing,” Fuja said. “A lot of kids feel that they have to know how to draw, they have to know how to paint or have to know how to work with clay before they even take the class, and that’s not the case. I always ask the kids, ‘Do you know how to do a chemistry lab when you walk into chemistry?’ and the answer is no. And [then] I say, ‘This is the exact same thing. We’re here to teach you how to do it.’”
Junior Appy Wielgus commented that she appreciates having her art shown. She’s especially proud of her artistic improvement and sees the art show as a platform to demonstrate that.
“Freshman year I was feeling like my art was being judged, but now not really. […] Last year I was kind of proud, and this year I’m becoming more [open] as an artist,” Wielgus said. “It’s like you’ve worked so hard on it, and now it’s being displayed somewhere.”
Wielgus’s scratchboard drawing of Kurt Cobain, a member of the band Nirvana, was put in the exhibit. According to Wielgus, she wanted to choose a topic that inspired her so that she would work hard on it, and using a scratchboard proved to be a difficult medium.
“Starting was the hardest because you’re like, ‘Oh I don’t know where to do the proportions,’ because you can’t sketch it out like you’re doing pencil,” Wielgus said. “So I started with the eye, and then you just kind of have to keep going around it and keep adding on and it’s really hard. […] But, you just have to kind of trust yourself.”
Junior Stephen Sholty had his self portrait put into the art exhibit. According to Sholty, he had a picture of himself doing an interesting facial expression and then polarized it in photoshop. From there he printed it out and copied it onto the canvas.
“Everyone got to polarize their own way, so everyone had a different color set which was interesting and made it individual that way,” Sholty said. “The most important thing to me was accuracy. […] It was probably [the piece] I spent the most hours on.”
Grace O’Malley had her sketchboard drawing of an old man put in the art show. O’Malley commented that her choice to draw an old man was indicative of her artistic style.
“When I do different things in art I like to do things that have imperfections, because it’s a way to beautify the imperfections through my art and to show the harshness of the world can be beautiful in art,” O’Malley said.
According to Leah Schwartz-Dodek, art exhibit attendee, she really enjoyed the variety in the art show and liked the idea of the exhibit as a whole.
“GBS puts a lot of emphasis on sports; we do huge pep rallies for football games, and not many people notice things like art,” Schwartz-Dodek said. “This is an insane amount of talent, so it’s important that GBS recognizes that, because it’s something that people should be able to show off.”
According to Wielgus, she hopes that people will be able to take away that everyone has their own talents and that everyone’s able to express themselves through a different medium.
“It’s like self expression, and it’s really cool to see everyone’s talents and abilities,” Wielgus said. “I think going to the art show and taking time to look at everything you get to experience it more and actually see it.”
